Pick up a copy of the latest issue of Outside’s Go.I wrote the cover story about a cycling trip I took with Andy Hampsten in Italy this summer. Hampsten, who is the only American to ever win the Giro d’Italia, runs tours in Italy that merge intense riding with an intelligent immersion in Italian culture through his company Cinghiale, named for free-wheeling wild Tuscan pigs. But beyond that, Hampsten’s a thoughtful, self-effacing, energetic figure, and a strong proponent of cleaning up the sport. It was an honor to ride (and drink wine) with him.

Here’s a quote from Hampsten that did not make the story, but addresses how he thinks the sport can reclaim its image:
“It’s not easy but it’s very simple. The riders have to say, ‘let’s clean it up.’ They have to realize it. It has been dirty since the 80s. A lot of people quit because they don’t want to deal with it, but if the riders said, ‘lets clean it up from within, not from the outside,’ then the sport is going to be more interesting than ever.”

And another on the pure psychological pressure of racing the Tour de France:
“It’s three weeks of absolute physical, mental, and psychological pressure. If it’s 23 days of racing, 18 of those are just staying out of trouble. There was never a second when I shouldn’t have been calculating what I was doing, or thinking about a competitor, or thinking about how my competitors were thinking about me. You just go nuts analyzing everything. It’s exhausting. But I learned how to relax until the gun went off and then deal with the variables.”